In an effort to raise awareness about the importance of strong political action in preventing climate change, 55 activists from Greenpeace scaled the walls of the UK's Houses of Parliament yesterday. There was little resistance from police as they moved ladders into place to make the ascent. Once on the roof they unfurled yellow banners saying "Change the politics, save the climate". At the time of this writing, 31 activists remain on the roof, while 24 descended and were promptly arrested:This direct action comes as parliament ministers return from summer break and the UK Committee on Climate Change releases its assessment of progress in reducing emissions, which indicates that Britain must cut emissions six times faster than is currently being done if current climate change commitments are to be met.

Government is Letting the World's People DownCommenting on the roof occupation, Greenpeace's Anna Jones was quoted in The Guardian as saying direct action of this type was fully justified,

Now is the time to start putting policies in place to make sure we are on the right trajectory to peak our emissions and bring them down. But instead we have a government that is prepared to lock us into high carbon projects like the third runway at Heathrow.

Climate change is the biggest challenge we are facing. It takes action like this to make the politicians wake up. They are letting us down and letting down citizens around the world.

Greenpeace Has a Climate Change 12 Step ProgramGreenpeace has recommended 12 policies that the UK should undertake to protect the climate, these include: Guaranteeing that the UK power sector be emit near zero carbon by 2030; immediately ruling out any new coal power plants without fully abated emissions; committing to a target of 42% emission reductions by 2020; retrofitting existing buildings to make them more energy efficient; committing to 15% of the UK's total energy use come from renewables by 2020.